Ion implanters are known for use in treating workpieces such as silicon wafers. When such a wafer is bombarded with an ion beam, the silicon wafer is selectively doped with the ion impurity to create a semiconductor material from the original silicon material of the wafer. It is well known to create complex integrated circuits using such wafers. Circuit components on a small scale are created through use of masking techniques that selectively limit the exposure of the silicon to bombardment with the ions coming from an ion source.
Ion implanters generally fall into different categories that depend on their intended use. One class implanter has a support that supports multiple wafers which are moved through a suitably shaped ion beam. Other implanters treat or process one wafer at a time. In these so called serial implanters, the single wafer is mounted to a support that translates back and forth through a thin ribbon shaped beam coming from an ion source.
Both type implanters include a source of ions which typically ionize a source material such as Boron in either a gaseous or solid state and selectively accelerate and filter the resultant ion species to form a ribbon or pencil beam having a controlled dose and energy. A typical ion source is a high frequency replacement item for the ion implanter. The source includes an arc chamber in which the source material is ionized by means of a filament mounted within the arc chamber. A plasma of ions is created which are extracted from the arc chamber and then accelerated. In a chamber using a gaseous source material, the gas must be routed into the chamber from a source at atmospheric pressure to the sub atmospheric arc chamber. In the prior art when an arc chamber is replaced, a seal to atmosphere is broken between the gas source and the arc chamber.